Australian Airline (Qantas) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Australian Airline (Qantas) - Essay Example Safety culture and excellence are the key components of the brand that could help in a smoother entry into other markets. Weakness Declining profits and the domestic passengers choosing to fly out of Australia on airlines other than Qantas has forced the airline to think of alternative routes. Significant differences in culture exist between the Asian countries and Australia, which could impact the marketing strategy. So far Qantas has been focusing on the western countries with similar cultures but entering the Asian countries would require alteration in the marketing approach, as the Asians are considered conservative (Articlebase, 2010). People skills would be necessary to compete in the Asian market. To expand in the Southeast, Qantas faces cultural challenges as Australia has low power distance while all Southeast Asian countries have high power distance (Hofstede, n.d.). Culture has a significant effect on problem-recognition, problem-solving and perception and cognition (Gilbe rt & Tsao, 2000). Such cultural differences can impact the satisfaction levels for the same product among global consumers. Opportunity The three most competitive travel markets in Southeast Asia include Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia (Chang & Cheng, 2005). In fact, the best performing airports in the ASEAN region are located in these three countries. Asia’s economic growth and the growing middle-class has helped fueled the growth of the airline industry. This segment continues to grow and provide expansion opportunities to the airlines. Asia is a highly dispersed continent and hence unlike UK and US, surface or rail transport across countries is not feasible. Air travel is the fastest mode of travel for business and leisure... This report approves that while Qantas enjoys its brand equity, it has been seeing profits fall over last several years. Expansion is the only solution and the target market should be the Southeast market, which it has ignored till recently. The opportunities in Southeast Asia are tremendous and Qantas should position itself as a full-service carrier and focus on product differentiation. It already operates a low-cost carrier, namely, Jetstar and hence should concentrate on FSC. Their image in Thailand was tarnished and hence they would need to project itself as a premium airline in all other Southeast Asian countries. Investments would have to be made in brand enhancement as well. Qantas intends using only narrow body aircrafts for the new carrier so that they do not have to fly to Europe. They also have decided to enter into partnership with Malaysian Airlines and they already have alignment with British Airways. This essay makes a conclusion that Qantas may have to apply flexible marketing strategies such as differential pricing, joint venture promotion campaign, multi-sales channel. Qantas has to use the hub as Singapore and focus on development new markets such as India and other nations, away from the Thailand, Hong Kong sectors. India is a promising destination and could also enhance the prospects of tourism for Australia. They could offer differential pricing and special offers for internet booking for developing new customers for added routes and even for their existing customers.